The Department of Labor on Aug. 8 finalized an 812-page rule that contains more than 50 significant changes to the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act. Instead of modernizing and improving this deeply flawed law, those changes double down on its shortcomings.
Such massive changes make a bill introduced earlier this year by Rep. Bob Good (R-VA)—the Repeal Davis-Bacon Act —all the more important to protect taxpayers, small construction companies, and the 83% of construction workers who are not unionized.
The Davis-Bacon Act is a 1931 law that requires contractors on federally funded construction projects pay at least the local “prevailing” wage and benefits, so that federal projects don’t drag down local compensation.
While the Davis-Bacon Act no longer aims to discriminate against black workers, it blatantly discriminates against nonunionized construction workers, and it fails to achieve its goal of providing market-based compensation. That’s because the Department of Labor substitutes its own contrived, non-scientific calculations of “prevailing wages” for actual market wages. Consequently, the act drives up the costs of federal construction projects by 9.9%.
The Government Accountability Office and the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General have repeatedly criticized the department’s Wage and Hour Division for its survey methodology, including using non-scientific, self-selected, and small samples to estimate wages and allowing 100% error rates in surveys. The result of these...
Pakistan on April 22, Thursday urged the United Nations to call upon India to restore full implementation of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), warning that New Delhi’s “illegal” decision to hold the ...